


Bad Days and Good Friends

by JayofOlympus



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bob Ross as a Coping Mechanism, Cuddling & Snuggling, Everyone that needs a hug gets a hug, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Multi, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Hand Holding, Thor is friend shaped, boys using their words, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2020-09-30 17:23:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20450804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayofOlympus/pseuds/JayofOlympus
Summary: Four Avengers snuggling on a couch. That's it. That's the plot.





	1. Bad Days and Good Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FrenchKey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchKey/gifts).

> Happy birthday Ali! You asked for fluff, and I gave you the fluffiest of fluff.
> 
> This was written as gen, but can be read as pre-ship. Because FrenchKey is the worst (love you) and made a comment that gave me shippy thoughts. There may be a sequel.

It had been a hellish week. Going on two weeks, for Thor and Bucky. Being regular, squishy, unenhanced humans meant that Tony and Clint had gotten around forty-eight hours of downtime between the two of them, while the others had been catching naps in the Quinjets while hopping from one mission to the next.

Steve was still out there, with Sam and Rhodey backing him up. T’Challa was dealing with the political side of the cleanup after one of the missions. Tony couldn’t even remember which one it was. Natasha was undercover in Argentina, and had been for just over a month, though they’d been getting pretty close to calling her in to help. Carol made that unnecessary though when she made it back from whichever distant planet she’d been hanging out on. She’d snagged Strange to help out with the latest disaster and told the five of them to head home and get some rest.

Which is how Tony ended up sitting in Thor’s lap watching some shitty, mindless comedy. He wasn’t sure why they’d all decided to sit on the same small couch, barring Bruce who’d gone to his room to sleep off three Hulk-outs, when there was plenty space in the living room for all the Avengers, reserve Avengers, significant others, and otherwise unspecified hangers-on to comfortably sit around. But here they were. On what basically amounted to a loveseat.

Clint was in the middle, leaning against Bucky’s flesh shoulder, with his feet tucked under Thor’s thigh. Bucky had his arm thrown across the back of the couch, fingertips brushing against Thor’s shoulder. Tony sat with his back to the arm of the couch, feet in Clint’s lap.

It was nice. In a weird way. The four of them didn’t ever really spend much time together, especially not as a group. They were friends, Tony thought, but more in a sense that they were friends with the same people and hung out together when those other friends were there too. In fact, for a long while, he and Bucky had only ever been in the same room if Steve was there too. They’d moved on since then, and Tony liked to think they’d handled it well, if not particularly gracefully. It had been a weird one, but they could hold a friendly conversation without it being awkward now.

“I could sleep for, like, an entire year,” Clint said, gently bumping Bucky’s shoulder with the back of his head. “This has probably been, like, top six worst weeks I’ve ever had in my life.”

Tony squinted at him, because _top six_? Thor just chuckled and patted Clint’s leg with one of his giant hands. He had to wrap his arm around Tony to do it, because the hand that was actually closer to Clint was all wrapped up in deference to his broken wrist. It would only take a couple of days to heal, but Tony _really_ didn’t want to think too hard about what kind of force it would take to break _Thor’s_ wrist. The arm stayed wrapped around him, and the hand stayed on Clint’s shin.

“You could just go to bed, y’know,” Bucky pointed out, sounding about as drained as Tony felt.

Clint just shrugged, and yeah. Tony got it. It had been a hellish week, and this weird tangle of limbs was warm, and soft, and he really wanted to sleep, but he needed to be around people. People he trusted, specifically. There was a buzzing under his skin that felt a lot like the wait before a fight, and he was exhausted, but too keyed up to get any sleep any time soon. He’d spent way too many consecutive days going head to head with people who really wanted to kill him, and having three of the toughest motherfuckers he knew surrounding him helped to settle that buzzing sensation just a little.

He figured that Clint, and maybe Bucky and Thor, probably felt similar. Clint was doing that not-quite-jittery thing with his hands that he did when he’d been jumping between missions for too long. His brain got caught between _in his nest not moving_ and _in the fray not stopping_, and left him sitting perfectly still, except for the way he’d twist his fingers together, hands moving in fits and starts. It was getting annoying, to see the jerky little movements in his peripheral vision.

Tony was grabbing one of Clint’s hands before he could even register the thought of doing so. It was just to make the guy quit fidgeting, he told himself, ignoring the quiet sigh, and the soft, almost relieved smile Clint shot him.

They sat there in silence for a while. Clint’s hand in Tony’s, Thor’s arm around Tony’s waist and his hand still resting on Clint’s leg, and Bucky’s fingers lightly resting on Thor’s shoulder. They all kept their eyes on the TV, not really watching, but not willing to find something else to do. Tony could feel his exhaustion dragging at him, making his eyelids heavy, and his thoughts slow. Not that his thoughts were ever _slow_, just slower than their usual mile-a-minute speed.

“You can take ‘em out, y’know,” Bucky said, and Tony turned to see what he was talking about.

Clint had been adjusting the placement of one of his hearing aids with his free hand. Tony made a mental note to look into the possibility of making some that were more comfortable to wear. Of course, _more comfortable_ was probably pretty relative when he’d been wearing them for three days straight.

Clint glanced up at Tony, then to Thor. “Guess I could,” he said, guarded. “But if we get an alert…”

Tony waved him off. “We’ll let you know,” he said, letting go of Clint’s hand so that he could take his hearing aids out. “Not that we’re gonna get any alerts. ‘Cause we won’t.”

Clint just huffed and took them out, staring at them intensely for a moment before placing them carefully on the coffee table. He took up his previous position immediately after, and after a short deliberation, he grabbed Tony’s hand again, pointedly not looking at him when he did so.

Tony couldn’t help the fond smile at that. He felt like the Grinch, with his heart growing three sizes. It was just. Ugh. He was having so many sappy feelings. These guys were his _friends_. They _liked_ him. He had more friends than he knew what to do with these days, and none of them wanted anything from him. They just liked him and wanted to spend time with him. And they were all so affectionate in their own weird ways. Clint was always casually touching him and making stupid jokes, and actually listened when Tony started explaining things, even when he started going on tangents and losing his train of thought. Thor was the same way, always eager to show his teammates physical affection. Just thinking about his hugs made Tony sink deeper into his hold, letting the warm weight of Thor’s arm around his waist lull him closer to sleep, eyes drooping.

He felt fingers begin to gently massage his scalp, and realised that Bucky had moved his arm enough to be able to reach behind Thor’s neck to Tony’s head. Bucky… wasn’t, generally, big on physical affection. He’d cook, or bake, or press bottles of water or mugs of coffee into the hands of those he wanted to look after, but he was often wary of touch still. Tony wanted to take the time to figure out what this casual initiation of touching meant, but the soft touch and repeated motions were soothing, and he could feel himself start to drift off.

“You should sleep too, Bucky,” Tony heard Thor say. He felt the words rumbling through him from where he was pressed against Thor’s chest. “And you, Clint. I will keep watch while you rest.”

“JARVIS can watch,” Tony mumbled, his words slurring as sleep drew ever closer. “We can all sleep.”

If any of them answered, he was never sure, asleep before he could hear anything else.


	2. Bob Ross and Bad Flirting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More snuggling, but this time it's shippy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas Ali! I hope you enjoy the second installment of your schmoopy gifts.

Tony's never quite sure which of them started it. After that hellish week and subsequent cuddle pile, they all just ended up gravitating toward each other. Whether it was Thor hanging around in the lab discussing complex aspects of astrophysics in the most poetic terms possible, or Clint and Bucky curled up on a couch watching bad sci-fi, the four of them all kept finding spaces in each others’ lives and filling them.

To be perfectly honest, Tony probably wouldn’t have noticed that anything was happening at all if it hadn’t been for Clint. He and Bucky had hijacked the couch in the corner of the lab and were painting each others’ nails while Tony worked. They didn’t seem to mind that he wasn’t contributing much to the conversation, so he tuned out a little, only catching snippets. What caught his attention was hearing Clint mention the circus.

“Yeah, one of the aerialists taught me, back in the day,” Clint said. “I got pretty good at a few styles, if you want to try something new.”

Tony was confused. It was pretty much impossible for any of them to get him to talk much about his time before SHIELD without a lot of prodding, and sometimes alcohol. For him to be freely offering up information meant… something. Tony wasn’t entirely sure what it meant.

“You learned to style hair from an acrobat?” Tony said, still not entirely sure what was going on.

“Aerialist,” Clint clarified. “She was an aerialist. And you should see what I learned from the sword swallower,” he added with a saucy wink.

He was on his feet and out of the lab before Tony could process the words. He glanced over to Bucky, only to find that he was holding back laughter.

“That was a terrible line,” Bucky snickered, shaking his head. “Just… the absolute worst. Wow.”

The next hint that something was going on came two days later. Bucky was having a bad day, so he was wrapped up in a blanket burrito on the couch, watching Bob Ross. Tony could see the appeal. The guy’s voice was soothing as hell. Which was how Tony ended up snuggled up next to Bucky on the couch, wrapped in a blanket of his own.

It wasn’t long before Clint slipped into the room and joined them, squishing Tony further into Bucky’s side. The three of them drifted in and out of sleep for a while, comfortable and warm.

Tony wasn’t quite sure what woke him, but when he blearily opened his eyes, he saw Thor leaning over to press a gentle kiss to Bucky’s head. He gave Tony a soft smile and smoothed down his ridiculous bedhead with one giant hand.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said in a whisper. “I only meant to see if the three of you needed anything; it seems you all needed a quiet day.”

“Bucky was having a bad day,” Tony explained. “I don’t know about Clint.” Looking at the archer - curled up in the corner of the couch, with bags under his eyes that spoke to several sleepless nights - it was pretty obvious he’d been having a rough day too.

“Would you like me to stay?” Thor asked, his hand still resting on the back of Tony’s head.

Tony nodded, reaching up to grab Thor’s hand. He didn’t let go until Thor picked him up and settled into the empty spot left behind, setting Tony in his lap.

Before Tony drifted back off to sleep, he felt Thor press a kiss to his brow.

“So, like, are we dating?”

Clint’s question woke Tony from his sleep. They were still all curled up on the couch, and Thor was holding Bucky’s hand.

“I would very much like us to be,” Thor said, “If the three of you are amenable.”

Bucky snorted. “Amenable,” he repeated. “Sure, I wanna date you guys. I figured that’d be pretty obvious.”

Tony took a second to figure out what was happening. It was all a little much to process when he had only just woken up.

“Hey, I’ve been making passes at y’all since we all moved in,” Clint said, hands up in surrender.

“What…? I…? You…?” Tony spluttered. “I mean, yes, obviously, I’m very interested, but what is even happening right now?”

“We’re cutting through the bullshit and being blunt about what we want,” Clint said, grinning. “Is it working?”

Bucky cracked up at that, evidently in much higher spirits than he had been the day before.

“You’re such a shit, Barton,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s a good thing we all love you anyway.”

Clint’s answering smile made Tony’s heart melt.

**Author's Note:**

> There you have it. Platonic couch snuggles are great.


End file.
